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Story - 7/10 - it was decent, close to level of PoF release which I still consider top tier in GW2. I loved the encounters in instances, perhaps last one was a bit too long. Amnoon fight was thrilling!

Map - 5/10 - sorry getting bored of this aesthetics. Too many rocks to fill empty space. Appreciate the artwork which is always on very high level (otherwise I would give it 1/10). Less hearts - more fun. Thanks!

Events - 10/10 - holy smoke, great job with that metas. Best fun I had since HOT launch in terms of events. Finally something that gathers people and is not shutting down entire map, making space for everyone else who does not like meta maps. And there are bounties too! So - all I asked to happen, THANK YOU ANET

+++++ lot's of love for Aurene showing up during meta. This makes event feel more alive and characters from story more relevant - PLEASE DO MORE THINGS LIKE THIS IN THE FUTURE!

Mastery - 2/10 - ok, I've seen it before with better rewards. Tho it's only the first level so I'm hopeful for the future

Rewards - 4/10 - more stuff drops from metas than enitre PoF maps, which I like. Yet nothing special found this far to work for, which is meh.

Meteor hunt - 1/10 - tried couple of times, had no luck to get there on time. Maybe finally I'll lern how to do it, marking very low cus no luck this far. EDIT: managed to do it, it's great! Would love to know what is it useful for in long shot, new weapons set from datamining perhaps? 10/10

New fractal - 8/10 - high due to being related to main story and region. We lack dungeons that would expand on current region. Such fractal is a step in good direction. Not a 10/10 cus I'm moving away from fractals theese days.

New raid - ?/10 - not playing raids, sorry. Tho I'm happy our top tier players have something new to enjoy.

Overal score I'd give it 7/10
It wins me with meta events and some stuff that yet I might find like skins or something to work for. And I love new QoL changes.

If i Dont like iT I start a discussion , So when iT is good i Also have to say iT and this was good!
I only wished that The expac maps where like The Living world map domain of istan.
I really loge The metas in this map and there is good loot. Thats what people want and why they come back, for The grind. Anet finally Gets iT. So inrealpy hope anet updates The expac maps with this kind of content.
Story was fine. Last mission was too long. But The big fight between 2 Camps was Nice and big.
Fractal and raid i havent tried yet But i Love The triple release. And Its always Nice to have new raid maps

Liked the story except for the part that Taimi was abducted, like..... how she got near Fahranur before the party?, i mean, the whole objective was to rescue the spearmarshal and make him tell me how to get into Fahranur, but it seems that Taimi got the free ticket into the city.

But what i liked, these containment chambers in the final instance, like, "subject alpa-0345x", status: ACTIVE, and the ley energy core being active for 7 years. I mean, there are some experiments unleashed in Tyria and i would like to find all of them.

And as final words, Hey, Archon Iberu, can you stay dead this time!?!?

I have really loved this release
the area you have taken us to is beautiful you guys are really hitting it out of the park with the different locations
the sound design was great
BOOKS! been waiting so long, wish there was more in them but please more of this
the missions were great. I really love how the story is flowing at the moment (and last season) I dont know whats going to happen and for me that's amazing cause i usually watch tv and play game and can tell whats gonna happen way before it does but this keeps me surprised and interested
love the fact your not afraid to dive into stuff that most others would save for an expansion it gives a lot of weight to these releases and makes them feel incredibly substantial and not like its all just filler for the next expansion
i do wish the rewards were better but i know that must be hard (it'd be amazing if you could do zone based armour or weapons something to show ur mastery of each zone would be really cool(i mean thank you for the minipets but they are kinda boring because they don't do much and a lot of people cull them anyway)(yea i know u guys had trinkets but you cant see those and there are just waaay to many backpieces now for only 1 back)
love the key ring it was desperately needed
this may not be you guys but would be awesome to get some sort of trophy room/library in our home instance cause my whole inventory is bogged down with stuff im not sure if i need (i keep alot of stuff cause i hear a lot of mystic recipes using stuff but i never know what could actually be used so end up filling my inventory with junk I have 100 inventory slots on my main character and 90 are filled with stuff i'm not sure if ill ever need as well as the three bank slot tabs i have)
not sure how squeezed for time you guys get but its really awesome when you guys set up scenes in out of the way and hard to find places
it makes the map and the whole game a lot more repeatable for explorers like me who love to roam around and stumble on these things ( like the swinging kid in the tree or the cats)(may be to difficult... and i know you guys do a little of this already but it'd be awesome if there was a little more)(would be more than willing to do it for you =P)
sorry if this is starting to sound like a wish list
again tho this was an amazing release guys you did really well
any gripes i have are quite minor keep in mind these are just things that would be cool if you improved upon but ultimately you guys did awesome work

I think some of the original 'charm' that this GW1-tragic has been missing in GW2 found its way back into the franchise with the release of PoF and LW4.

I'm not sure if it's the familiar (and so beautifully re-rendered) maps, discovering the fates of old friends (finding out the identity of the Last Spearmarshall in PoF brought a tear to my eye, as did fighting the Awakened version of an old friend LW4, and Magrid's dynasty is just plain amusing), the improved (and unobtrusive) NPC dialogue system, improved writing, or a combination of all these things. Whatever it is, I'm enjoying the look, feel and playability that PoF and LW4 have brought to these latest parts, and the improvements they've made to my enjoyment of GW2 in general - I finally feel motivated to take an alt through the entire game. My disability made some parts of HoT, LW1 and LW2 practically inaccessible for me (a buddy helped me through them), however, I had little or no trouble with soloing PoF and LW4 content, particularly with the saved progress during instances. I really hated having to redo instances right from the start in earlier chapters, when I was unable to defeat the final boss, and often left them unfinished for months. I also liked always having enough MP to be able to level skills without 'burning' XP.

It's a good thing that developers take little or no notice whether we players like particular NPCs or not. Just as in real life, there are folk who annoy you and others who go our of their way to help out - sometimes both at the same time. Personally, I have no problem with Rytlock and Brahm, other than wishing they were a little more effective in battle. Rytlock's insistence on getting my commander up from downed in some boss fights made them much longer than they needed to be ... he just ignores me when I shout "Enough with the lousy healing - let me be defeated so I can Retry from a Checkpoint"! [Maybe a shout of "Enough with the lousy Healing!" could be downed skill?]

I am bemused as to why all these new junk items have been added to the game. At least some of them are now worth toting to a merchant, but really? While on the subject of junk items, how much do you think I'd love to have a "sell all minor runes" button next to the "sell all junk" on the merchant screens?

I agree with comments that some of the boss fights are way too long, how many times do we have to repeat an action for the game to know we've worked the mechanic out? Why do we always have to beat six of these and four of those, then beat them again to get more of their drops to place here and then the others there, just to get a swing at the boss?

But those are just minor annoyances in recent content that has essentially got my GW2 mojo almost to GW1 levels ... and that's saying a LOT!

I don't mean to fanboy out here, but this was some of the best content I've ever played in GW2. As a relatively hard core player, I had barely logged in for like a month, delayed playing the update, and didn't even finish it until tonight, but WOW was it good. The final instance was mechanically interesting, the voice acting was on point, the GW 1 was there, everything came together. I loved it. More like this!

Only criticism was Koss was a disrespect to himself, WAAAAAAY too easy to beat.

After i explored all expac maps with My chars and did The achievements i Dont see myself come back there. I would if The loot Rewards are like The new map domain of istan. I really hope anet Will put new Or better events in The expac maps with same amount of loot. Otherwise i think in a half Year No one is around in The expac maps.
The new map is great!

The new crafting style for legendarische is better. Instead of doing The same content over you now have to craft recipe to get The precursor. So much better this. Legendaries look Nice

Raid content is awesome. Keep that up. Just like more fractals and revamps.

I'm really not keen on the 100-word format. If nothing else, I'll split mine into "map" feedback and "story"-feedback.

Map: Good first impression, due to a decent variety of locales. It's mount- and glider-friendly and quite fun to move around in as a result. In terms of atmosphere, it also does a good job underlining how atrocious the Joko-regime is with or without him. The brand-metor thing seems a bit confusing though. Thumbs down for collection achievements that just sit in my inventory afterwards; PoF did such a good job letting us "consume" such items for karma. Also for the fight with Warden Amala. I also don't like that the Sunspear caches don't have location-cues in their achievement list.

Story: Stop painting Taimi as the only brain in the world. Stop letting Braham trample all over the PC as if we didn't lose and suffer more than he did, without any of the support he got. Stop making us care so much about the NPCs who in return don't even acknowledge THAT WE DIED. Give me more of Aurene and our "bond" instead of these fake friends. I'm still annoyed we didn't get a mutually emotional reunion with her. Thumbs up for her redesign and for the profession-specific moment, down for the lack of much-needed racial dialog again. Let the Commander finally be more of a character and less of a story-vehicle and NPC-enabler.

There are times when I wish missions would ease down on the Super Mario/Megaman mechanics and fireworks super show. It would be nice sometimes to have more mature ways of going forward in storytelling. The Baldur's Gate series comes to mind.

Gotta add some more: I was delighted to see Aurene doing flybys to help us during the map-metas, just as we ask her to do in the story. That's our girl! My burning question now is, where is Caithe? She did pledge herself to protecting Aurene.

For the love of god. Fix the AI of your crew, they just stand there and do absolutely nothing while I am getting slaughtered by milions of minions and the last boss fight lasts soooooooo daaaaaaaamn loooooooooong.......................

@PersoEA.1409 said:
For the love of god. Fix the AI of your crew, they just stand there and do absolutely nothing while I am getting slaughtered by milions of minions and the last boss fight lasts soooooooo daaaaaaaamn loooooooooong.......................

^^this. I can't tell you how many times the NPCs that are supposed to "help" just stand around twiddling their thumbs and ignoring the need for combat help. Their AI needs to be improved.

The only "help" I got in the story instance was an occasional sword swing (then they stopped and stood around while I had to dodge, search and destroy necessary crystals to make the mob vulnerable to attacks), plus the "oh, gotta rez" our player because the aoe covered the entire area and there was no safe spot to dodge to.

For crying out loud Anet, fix the dopey AI for these NPCs who are supposed to help out.

Pros
-Loved having the ability to ask key NPCs for some additional voiced lore, such as the First Spear!! I wish we had this in other maps, as it really gave me that extra level of sensory immersion and gave me an incentive to spend time talking to NPCs.

-When setting sail on our cutscene to Istan, I could have sworn that Aurene flying next to us was actually a griffon. Felt like that might have been an intentional wink-wink nudge-nudge to future events.

-Istan itself was lovely. I’ve very much enjoyed how lively the environments feel in Elona. I was also a fan of what the jungle in HoT accomplished in its environment design and theme, but I was worried that level of detail wouldn’t translate well to the desert. Boy was I wrong. And Istan manages to differentiate itself enough from the main continent that it feels genuinely new. You managed to pack enough care and attention to detail into every point of interest. I felt compelled to spend a lot of time in certain areas just taking it all in.

-VERY happy that the new map wasn’t the ENTIRETY of Istan. Love that extra level of mystery and anticipation for more.

-Keyring. I don’t think anyone would challenge the move to free up more inventory slots. 10/10

-Introducing meta events on these maps is an incredible way to continue the secondary story and world events of the PoF era. I think that it would have been a huge mistake to have simply set aside the awakened and Joko as a threat we would deal with only after we handle Kralkatorrik. Especially when the influence of Joko in Elona has consistently been one of the most well-rounded story elements in GW2.

-KOSS!!!

-The Nyoom Glitch has been (mostly) fixed. While hilarious at times, it got to be very annoying.

CONS
-sigh And this is a big one so I'll put it under a spoiler

Braham. While I do actually like Braham’s character and understand that he does not always have to be a good and helpful character to be an interesting one, I do think he is the most poorly written out of our buddies in recent times. The impact of his outburst at us in Crack in the Ice should have probably been revisited sooner while the wounds were still fresh. I can buy that his insubordination of the commander would have left us stunned and frustrated, leaving us to think as players that “we don’t have time to deal with this kid. We have bigger problems.” But pushing the issue off throughout the rest of LWS3, a potential resolution to Braham’s actions totally fizzled. He didn’t show up to confront us in some way regarding Jormag during One Path Ends, but he really SHOULD have. Maybe with some powerful face to face dialogue, a boss fight between the two of us (how satisfying would that be), and after we defeat him in combat, we reach a resolution to help strengthen the commander and Braham’s relationship with each other. Granted, I don’t write the story for GW2, but even I think Braham should have been addressed earlier, not after the entirety of PoF when we’ve largely forgotten about him and it really doesn’t matter. I find it even less impactful that when Braham exhibits the exact same behavior AGAIN, we don’t challenge him. I realize this isn’t the time for our character to bicker with him when there are other objectives at stake. I just feel that the time to address Braham’s behavior has long since passed with the end of LWS3, and placing it here seems like an afterthought to tie up loose ends. Unless the devs are really playing a long game with Braham’s character arc that will pay off in a major way, this encounter just seems awkward.

-I’m not usually on the side of nerfing intentionally challenging content just for the sake of making it easier, but I agree with the players who are saying that the enemies’ AOE and CC on this map is far too punishing. Enemies spawn too frequently and in too high of numbers that I find myself running halfway across the map to disengage mobs just so I can get on my mount. Clearing an area to make it “safe” enough to mount up for even 30 seconds to a minute is impossible.

-Also, in the loot stage of the Palawadan meta, after we have cleared the city, why are there still so many enemies around? They seem to multiply or come out in even greater numbers after we’re supposed to have raided the place, which makes getting around to find the Supply Chests really painful while trying to dodge a million respawning loyalists.

-While the first instance battle in Amnoon was very fun and the stakes felt high, the bright purple explosions, effects, and crystals were kind of an eyesore. It was pretty tedious trying to find the purple crystals that I actually needed to destroy to take the enemy shields down when there’s SO much other purple chaos happening. Maybe tone it down a little.

Just wondering if the economic shift for t6 mats was intended or not.
If it was, good, cause they'll drop even more in the long run. if it wasn't, you might want to look into the Trophy Shipment stuff.
A few days ago when I first bought quite a lot of them, they gave back over 300% of invested gold (and that's just counting t6 mats, not even bothering about t5) and now that the prices already went down quite a lot, I still get around 250% return value in t6 mats alone. Considering how easy it is to obtain Volatile magic, t6 mats slowly moving to half the price they currently are at isn't that unthinkable and I doubt it's the intention to make t6 mats 10-15s instead of the 30s they were at.
Again, if that's the intention to make legy's even more common than they already are, mission accomplished. If it wasn't, you might want to run some large scale tests on opening Trophy Shipments and adjust them accordingly

I hate the whiny norn and I really hate the Mary Sue BS with Taimi. Its either she has all the plans in place and a super powerful exo suit or she is a victim. Pick one. She can't be both. That fight is a waste of time since the last part of it was us having to wait her out anyway. It literally soured me on going back into that map for anything else. I might not even replay it with friends at this point its bothered me that much.

The story was fun.
The writing for the npc dialogue was bad. Canach quips, Rytlock is surly, Taimi is a smart kitten. It’s caricature. (Voice actor for Taimi was really good, though. If she were given better material to work with, it could be a great character)
The new map is really lovely.
New weapon skins is a plus.
The sunspear marshal we save is handsome. I think he should join my character on all new missions.
FPS is really low in a lot of places on the new map. Hopefully that can be fixed as it reduces desire to be on the map despite it being lovely.
Poor Koss.
A little too much was going on at the end of the final fight. Red circles everywhere and no time to look for a solution. The solutions to the rest of the puzzles in that instance were perfect.

I died twice trying to open the map fighting the dragon. I got frustrated and logged out and haven’t tried it again. I don’t like the way you have to fight a mini boss to open the maps for LS. I might’ve been doing something wrong but I wasn’t having fun.

As with PoF, the story missions were the most enjoyable part... except for the one where we meet Awakened Koss (it was boring, Koss deserved a much better story implementation). My favorite by far was the prison escape (although it could have been longer, filled with puzzles).

Whiny Taimi on the comm is 500% more annoying than usual Taimi.

Got a good laugh out of the Indiana Jones ("That belongs in a museum!") and other references.

Map:

Excellent design work. Not a big fan of the (once more) vertical layout; still haven't bothered to figure out what the Sand Jackal portals are for and where they lead.

Map Content:

Events seem chaotic as usual. Where is the logical connection, where is the guidance? The same reason I haven't participated in most PoF events yet, let alone those bounties. Find a better system.

Enemy mobs still annoying (you can't properly explore places in peace, it's always hectic), but at least most have a less absurd aggro range than in PoF.

Other content:

Didn't find the new raid instance by myself. Where is it? (Yes, I know, I could look it up, but that's the thing: people always need to do research on their own because your game provides zero guidance for anything apart from the story.)

New currencies, new ways of acquiring ascended and legendary gear -- I find your approach chaotic and it leaves me disinterested in the new stats and new equipment, to be honest.

Didn't find the official thread when I was searching, so I am re-posting from the unofficial thread, hope that's okay.

I would like it if they tweaked the event, 'Stop the book-burning raid on the Astralarium library.'
Short Version Why: Victory conditions are very unsatisfying

This event, with its huge-health-pool mobs, seems to be set up as what should ideally be a large-goup event in an area where there are usually only a few people taking part. It is still possible to 'win' with just that handful, but...the victory timer is for how many books the Mordant Crescent has burned. So when you get to the end of it, it's like, "Well, they burned five hundred books, but I saved four. Yay, me!" It is not a feel-good ending. It's a pat on the back for us when Joko has actually won.

Possible changes, any one of which could make this a more satisfying event:
1. Change the timer to 'Time till the fire is lit' and have the books being piled or tossed into an unlit furnace or something instead of tossed directly into the flames. This gives the hero a chance to save ALL the books. Happier ending with no nerf, but would probably take some work. Maybe there could be torch-bearers we have to stop, like those annoying D.O.X. golems in Rata Novus who keep firing up the defense turrets while we're fighting the boss.
2. Lose the high-health-pool mobs. I know I am not a high-DPS player, but I have followed some of those targeted book-burners, blasting away at one from the library to the bottom of the staircase, and barely made a dent in its health bar. All a solo or small group can hope for is to use CC and delaying tactics enough to squeak by running down the timer, when almost all the books have been burned.
3. Give the event a reward that will attract larger groups of players. Currently, there is no reason to even bother with this event apart from being in the library when it happens and hating book-burners.

@Cragga the Eighty Third.6015 said:
Didn't find the official thread when I was searching, so I am re-posting from the unofficial thread, hope that's okay.

I would like it if they tweaked the event, 'Stop the book-burning raid on the Astralarium library.'
Short Version Why: Victory conditions are very unsatisfying

This event, with its huge-health-pool mobs, seems to be set up as what should ideally be a large-goup event in an area where there are usually only a few people taking part. It is still possible to 'win' with just that handful, but...the victory timer is for how many books the Mordant Crescent has burned. So when you get to the end of it, it's like, "Well, they burned five hundred books, but I saved four. Yay, me!" It is not a feel-good ending. It's a pat on the back for us when Joko has actually won.

Possible changes, any one of which could make this a more satisfying event:
1. Change the timer to 'Time till the fire is lit' and have the books being piled or tossed into an unlit furnace or something instead of tossed directly into the flames. This gives the hero a chance to save ALL the books. Happier ending with no nerf, but would probably take some work. Maybe there could be torch-bearers we have to stop, like those annoying D.O.X. golems in Rata Novus who keep firing up the defense turrets while we're fighting the boss.
2. Lose the high-health-pool mobs. I know I am not a high-DPS player, but I have followed some of those targeted book-burners, blasting away at one from the library to the bottom of the staircase, and barely made a dent in its health bar. All a solo or small group can hope for is to use CC and delaying tactics enough to squeak by running down the timer, when almost all the books have been burned.
3. Give the event a reward that will attract larger groups of players. Currently, there is no reason to even bother with this event apart from being in the library when it happens and hating book-burners.

I think this idea is worth a review by Anet. Personally, I did this event only once and gave up when I realized how fruitless my efforts were. I've not been back and when I am in the area when this event is going on, I do other things or leave. This particular event is really a non-event in my eyes.

MINOR RAID SPOILERS
I dislike(d) the reusing of flesh golem skins in the raid mostly in b4. The skin can be used by PCs so it felt weird and it reminded of the godly gw1 skin that there was imo a chance to reintroduce. Renaming Aatxes was weird too and idk if there's an explanation for the smite crawler renaming.

Hall of chains location is one of the major things I wanted. I wished for a solo way to farm UW for valuables too and I'm hopeful we'll get one eventually.

I like how stealth can be used in the raid and I hope that aspect won't get ENTIRELY deleted.

Well to be honest I didn't really like that episode.
I love the expansions (both , HoT and PoF) but this season I don't know...

SPOILER ALERT

The episode started pretty well but then I just had the feeling that I had to kill that many monsters or go find some objects here and there, and I didn't really pay attention to the story, I found that quite annoying.

I started to feel excited when I knew something happened to Taimi ( I love Taimi so I was like: Don't you dare touch her! i'm comming to the rescue!) but then Braham showed up, still super arrogant and immature. I hate him so much I wanted to kill him.

I wonder what you are going to do with him? Just please don't make my character say that he saved us and all ahaha

Otherwise well I love the game, you're doing a great job I love almost everything in gw2 and the expansions.
I just didn't really like that episode, it misses something to me.

The most stunning impressions :
I am speechless. Surely ANet does listen to the community because :

Map exploration : I remember reading about PoF something alongside : "no need to do an event to explore the whole map", as a genuine good thing. Well. They've listened. If you don't do the meta, you've got a really hard, if not impossible time to explore Palawadan for example.

Paragons and dervishes : some say it's fan-service and a wink to GW1 vets ? More or less, this is how I would have considered it if there hadn't been that many threads in the forum asking for them to come back, as professions, as elites, or just the spear/scythe. That never was possible, mostly because of precious dev's time, which of course makes sense. And now, you see that precious dev's time has been used to create those classes for NPC's. Create the skills (paragons shouts, which are not boons btw. Back to the old system ?), create the animations. I'm saying "used", I could better say "wasted", because they've been created for disposable adds.

Big encounters : the big bosses. Uh... You really had a good time designing them eh ? So many fireworks, so many fields on the ground, so many jumps and things. And the very very last attack of the whole chapter. Instructions are just "survive". Survive to what ? To an endless flow of nonsensical attack ? A previous thread asked "When is a fight getting too long ?" My answer : when you're so bored, bewildered, and feeling that exact oblivion that's the opposite of "fun" that you end up facepalming and chuckling because you're figuring out the very serious staff meeting that ended up to that failure.

So obviously, ANet reads the forum and understands. Understands the urge to do exactly the contrary of what players are asking and enjoying. Because what ? Because they love raising the middle finger to their community ? I'm just speechless. It's a shame. It's a disgrace. This only sheds a nausea tainted shadow of the what the devs have in mind when they're creating content : their own fun. Their own toys. And waving them in front of a community starving for more than fan-service. You really should spend more time creating content for the players to use, and not for the player to see.

Now, some words about the rest :

New map :

Smaller than PoF's and easier too : good point.

Meta will probably deserted soon ?

Heart quests boring.

New awakened mobs are too insanely powerful. Paragons and dervishes are ok.

Some fan service which is fine.

Art is nice, but there's something (not in the water !) in Champion's Dawn that drops my FPS to 10 even on my high end computer.

Lore and story :

Too many deus ex machina : don't know something ? Ask Taimi ! Looking for something ? Ask Kito ! It feels like those sidekicks are dragging the PC from one place, one guy, and one idea to the other, in order to progress in the story. So it feels rushed, and it makes me wonder about how much they could anticipate compared to a braindead commander...

Overall, story was interesting and engaging

I'm disappointed about Koss. I understand the idea of course, but I also feel like Koss was too important of a hero to end up like that. And I bet it would be General Morghan actually. Would have correctly filled the bill, without using such a huge name. Just my two cents.

Braham... What to say that hasn't already been said 10,000 times before... Just kill him.

The map is pretty as always, but at this point I have come to expect pretty from Guild Wars 2 maps. I'm spoiled and I know it.

As mentioned before the end fight was... strange. I didn't mind the mechanics or the length, just the final part that made absolutely no sense to both me and the friend I was playing with. We were just running around like chickens. Very strange experience, and not one I'd like to repeat.

Have to say though, that he armadas of mobs in the last part gave it a really good, epic feel to it. The encounter with Amala was fun as well, especially since when we arrived at the starting point of the story part the meta was going and so we fought her two times in a row.

Also, the way we broke out of the cage was clever. I was honestly surprised about that, well done.

I put my feedback for the characters in spoiler tags. Yes, it's long.

Taimi

I don't mind Taimi, nor any other of the characters involved in the story atm. Yes, Taimi held a major place in this installment of the story, but the focus on her character wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Personally, I would still tone it down in the following chapters, since Taimi encompasses too many elements of a classical Mary Sue to not make players annoyed with her at some point. Her disability and age were oviously intended to counter that, but at least her age only makes the deus ex of her personality stand out more. She is a genius, everyone gets that, but I would actually like to see her struggle heavily with a problem nor simply not being able to solve it. Make her age matter more, show her inexperience that comes from being that young. Make her need actual help from someone (Zojja).

The Commander alias ME

I'm playing a human female character, and first of all I have to applaud the German voice actor again, because hell does she sound bitchy and above this kitten. Marion von Stengel does an awesome job here, credit where it is due.

Storywise however, the portrayal of the commander bothers me a lot sometimes. In the personal story I picked the Vigil, so yes, it's perfectly justified for my character to go all Gryffindor "Take me as the bait, what could go wrong?", but what about a Durmand (Ravenclaw) or Whisper (Slytherin) character? Like seriously, there could have been more graceful ways to handle this. Living story isn't about different options, I know, but having at least two options to choose from would make the story a lot more believable in some aspects. They could end in the same outcome – getting knocked about by Amala – and still offer some difference in characterization.

Also the flippant use of "I died once already" irks me. Yes, the commander died, but good kitten we're still as human as they come. a) Nothing stops us from dying again & b) I doubt we'll be that kitten lucky again and come back from the Mists. I don't mind the arrogance in the dialogue, since it's justified in almost every case. The commander rocks, they deserve some respect for that. Just not the cocky I-have-immortality-by-plot-armor kind of arrogance, please. We know that we can't die, but that doesn't mean that the story has to flaunt it.

Other character

Ms. Pirate Captain S. Sly – whose first name I can't really remember – was a nice touch. Especially her warning, that if we ever came back to her ship, she would kill us. Go, girl. I like some spite in my NPCs, not to mention that her dialogue was highly entertaining.

Broham I'm still confliced with, and have been for a long time. I get that he was supposed to be an emo teenage boy hurt by the death of his mother – at least I hope so – but his entrance in this story chapter was... well, he and Rox served as plot devices here. First with the save, and then with the information of attacks in Tyria. Again, I see why it was done, but I don't necessarily agree with the way it was done. I'm some missing characterization here, with both him and Rox. It was nice touch that Rox at leats explained, why Garm isn't there. Props for that.

Koss was kind of a disappointment. The additioal dialogue, the tell, gave so much information about him, shaped him as deviant kind of fallen-against-his-will hero that defied his captors for centuries. He sounded kitten. Then came the letters pinned to the cave walls. I enjoyed that a lot, it was such a nice touch. More characterization before the character, yes! And problem was that when we actually meet him he felt like so much less than I expected of him. Just another grumpy old, undead dude.

Why didn't I tell him what the old guy told me, about his history? Why didn't he act like what we were told? The tell and the show didn't match there.

I've just got a small opinion to share about Mirage's Lingering Thoughts . In one of the patches this change was made:

"Lingering Thoughts: Lowered aftercast by 0.1 second. Fixed a bug that caused this skill to show an incorrect casting time. Added a 0.25-second recharge between uses of this skill to prevent accidental double use."

I personally liked it when there was not 0.25 in-between recharge time. I often do want to use this skill twice immediately. Now when I cast it for the first time, there is an awkward pause and I can't use Lingering Thoughts even after the short recharge. So in practice it seems like I need to wait a whole second before the second use.

I just finished this and I would definitely say of all content I have played in GW2 this is the worst by a huge margin. Story started with fetch quests. We jumped all over the place with disconnected narrative trying too hard to push Joko, which 1) was locked in the mists 2) beyond uninteresting 3) will be crushed by like a bug by the pact+Charr+Human+Asura. He can barely hold a sliver in Elona and is being invaded by forged and branded, now he will try to take over Tyria?! This is suicide. Put some kitten common sense into the kitten story. Also, what the hell is this portals appearing in the middle of everywhere?! How kitten convenient.

As for the game play, too many uninteresting mobs. Both main boss fights were terrible in design and execution (HOLY KITTEN LIGHTS!!!!!).

I am really considering skipping LS 4 all together if the direction will be cheesy, disconnected and none nonsensical narrative. Story was never GW2 strongest suit, but now it is holding it back.

I haven't done much in the new map since I was still working on PoF story and the griffon collections. I completed Daybreak story earlier tonight and soloed the last part. HOWEVER...

I don't have enough heals, dodges, condi clears, stability for all of the kitten that got thrown at me, especially the last boss fight. I agree with others who have posted that more hints about what to do at 75%/50%/25% health on the final boss would have been nice, but I was able to figure out what to do with not much adverse effect. The mob HP in the last part overall should be looked at. I lost count of how much I went down, and I was trying my hardest to kite/strafe/dodge but the AOEs man.. holy wow. You're killing me, Smalls. And speaking of killing things..

Can we PLEASE have better dialogue options other than just standing there like a stump when an emo drama queen Norn HASN'T EVEN BEEN THERE WITH US SINCE BITTERFROST FRONTIER!? Your character from that point to when they were accused has been through hell and back without so much as a backbone to defend themselves!? Wow, such emo. Much whine. I'd be perfectly content to let that douchewaffle just.. die already. The dude is straight up delusional.

The map itself is fine.. but please, lay off of the stuff that made y'all put in so many freaking ibogas. If I never see ibogas again it'll be too soon.

Otherwise, the story itself was fine.

The new mastery doesn't even feel like a true mastery since we were harvesting unbound magic from the jump in Season 3. Also, with the new commitment to clear inventory thanks to the "keychain"... I think the portal tome should be a one time purchase, so separate "sections" can be made for Season 3, 4, and beyond.

Overall score of Daybreak (minus the last part) - 9/10
The First City instance - 1/10

Daybreak is one of the most complete episodes Arenanet has released so far with literally content for everyone on the PVE side.
Raid: Due to the story behind it, I'm a bit disappointed it was done in one Wing, something like that should've been much larger, but still fun new encounters and bosses.

Fractal: I've only seen the lower tiers of the new fractal, it's fun, engaging and follows the new principle of mechanical complexity.

Map: Domain is Istan is a pretty new map that is a joy to explore, plus all the nostalgia from GW1. I dislike the Joko Wall though, it feels too game-y as a border. Maybe in the future the entire island of Istan will be one zone without walls?

Meta: The map has not one but TWO meta events. They fixed all the issues with the Path of Fire meta events, which seems like they are listening. The new meta events have fun events, lots of encounters instead of a single boss fight, lots of reward chests to get around, their notifications cover a huge area of the map so you can't miss them. Visibility, accessibility, enjoyment, reward. My one big complaint is with Archon Iberu (last boss of Palawadan) he uses an attack with a white light that is so huge it hurts my eyes. The other "problem" with the loot chests respawning even during the meta will probably be addressed SOON.

Race/Bounties/Adventures: It's a good thing that Arenanet remembered these from Path of Fire. The bounties, much like the Path of Fire bounties, need some reward push, especially the champions, it's hard to find people to hunt them, but overall it's good that they still exist.

Items: The map introduces new currencies, new weapon sets, new minis, following the reward system of Path of Fire with repeatable heart vendors, and adding new collections. The brandstone can be frustrating at times, but they found a way to make it a team-effort, more players = more rewards, which is always nice.

Achievements: There are also tons of collectibles and achievements on this rather small map to keep people busy.

Story: The story is exciting while Taimis performance is top notch. The story achievements are fair, and the instances aren't too long, expect for the last one which seems to be rather long for a story instance. There are also checkpoints that even help you in case of a DC, hopefully they will add an in-game alert that you got such a checkpoint so you know you can take a break.

Overall a great map. I hope the competitive modes get their fill like this one sometime during the Season.

It's a tiny bit late, but I love the map metas, the Brandstone Research collection (MORE OF THESE PLEASE!), and the general design of the map. However, I dislike the idea that Anet's suddenly against killing characters off after the Eir instance. That was the best time to kill Taimi and give the main character a personal reason to go after Joko for revenge, and show a darker side to the Commander, whereas characters like the Sunspears would step in to tell the Commander to show restraint, or Kasmeer etc. Overall, the story was average for a Living World Episode, but generally speaking, I think the map and the events saved it: 6/10!

Regarding Daily Corpse Caravan Disruptor: these should be definitely cut down in power because it's both hard to get one down alone and get people to help you (mainly because of both loot and quartz farming). Comparing with all previous Season 3 daily objectives, none was so annoying as this one - even Draconis Mons Daily Destroyer Wyvern Boss becuase for that one there was always someone needing item for collection so people were around.

So I suggest either making these easier to eliminate or completely replace it with "classic" objective - do X events in order to fill objective.

So I enjoyed the map, enjoyed the story, but - with the exception of Koss - basically despised the instances.

Eye of the Brandstorm - The amount of particle effects going on once you enter the city is absurd. It took me 5-10 minutes of frustration just to find the first branded crystal because I couldn't tell kitten was going on. The wyvern fight was very unsatisfying because the progression of the fight is an illusion. The boss heals so rapidly that your efforts are meaningless; you're essentially stalling for time while Aurene does all the real damage. It was not fun.

The Hero of Istan - The Warden Amala fight had me barking at my screen. She. Will. Not. Stand. Still. A boss that teleports around is fine but this one leaps and spins and teleports SO often that it was pure frustration. Again, not fun.

The First City - This one is the real offender for me, and there are multiple reasons:
- Too long. The entire instance is too long. I hate to be one to decry more content but seriously it was too long.
- The mob swarms are too much. Once? Sure. Three or four or five times? No.
- The condition spam on some of these awakened is ridiculous. I'm playing a S/D Water/Arcane/Weaver with swiftness spec who is basically built to never have conditions, and I couldn't keep up with all of it. I cannot imagine how other classes dealt with that Arbiter.
- The final fight with Scruffy is about three times longer than it should be, particularly in an instance as long as this one with a couple bosses in it already. Also, again, I'm a S/D weaver; I've got CC coming out of my ears and all of it was entirely useless. These bosses with no break bar mechanics that are ALSO completely immune to CC have got to go. Not fun.
- Braham is still being a whiny little teenager, and the Commander still doesn't say a word about it. Boy needs daddy's belt something fierce. Or mabye Taimi can tell him to kitten, I don't care. I'm just sick of him and it seems like everyone else is too.

I just finished the episode and the frustration I have coming out of it is almost Caudecus all over again. Your game should never have me yelling at my screen, Anet. Never.

Map - I love it, I think its a really fun map to explore. Very impressed with the scale of it as well considering how quickly it came out. Overall very good map

Mastery - Pretty much what I expected, but I do think its quite boring to not be able to pick up the new currency until you have this mastery. Its also uninspired. Hopefully the rest of the mastery track in LWS4 matches stuff like the druid magic mastery.

Story - Very fun and engaging to play! Seriously, I think the story telling goes up with each release. Not going to go into any spoilers, but overall very good. Still hate Braham with a passion

Instances - Pretty good for the most part. I think the last one was too long, and I didn't actually enjoy that instance very much. The final fight was also extremely annoying to play. Quite a long fight, at the end of an already long instance. And not a single safe space to stand if you wanted to check your phone, or go grab food, or use the restroom, due to those kitten asura cannons. And the little lightning kitten that the boss spins around on the platform to create the storm of AoE,s please for the love of god remove the pull on those! They were pulling me through mirage cloak, they would pull me even as I was trying to run away. For the life of I have no idea how a class without any teleports gets out of those if they mess up and get caught. Hell, if I was caught in one, I could use Jaunt to get out and at max range, teleporting behind it (so its moving farther away from me), I would still be close enough to be pulled by them. That's not a fun mechanic to me, I was really hoping it would stay in HoT. Other than those lightning kitten, the only thing I think that could make this fight better is to disable the asura cannons near one of the little gates whenever you destroy each little gate. If only to give players a spot to go stand for a few seconds, which is needed due to the length of hte instance and the fight.

Okay i know i’m a couple months late, but life’s been crazy so I only just finished playing the story recently.
I’m not sure what problem prompted you to disable selling rose quartz, but as a perpectually broke player who somehow never capped 200g in the going-on five years since I bought the game, hearing everyone lament the profits they’re no longer making is kind of a kick in the teeth. I’d appreciate a little more transparency on why you make changes to rewards when y’all do. As well as some thoughts on what you’re going to do to fix it.

"Iä! Iä! Selbbub Fhtagn! Oh, and the real Lazarus totally should have pulled an Aurene and replaced an Elder Dragon."

Me, @ all the devs.

Where'sMalyck2k18

I like the attention to detail when it comes to the story, when it comes to the human side of things, and I loved the fact that with the recent tech improvements the team at Arenanet are making great strides to make what I wanted since living world season 1 (and had the courage to write on the forum during season 2) a possible library in the home instance where we collect all of our books from our long adventures throughout Tyria, the planet. I also enjoyed the prospect of having at least 2 additional maps to go to on this archipelago and the callback to the Prophecies and Nightfall missions with the closing of the portals. I also enjoyed the fact that for the first time there was a villain that just reacted negatively to the communicator. And the jailbreak that was profession tailored was inspired, more of those, please.
What I didn't like in this episode was an issue that I still had when the Crack in the Ice episode rolled around and that's the grieving human child's attitude of Braham instead of him acting like a grieving norn young adult(besides the story journal entry error involving the frozen quaggan squad, no in story reason to talk to the NPC about the scroll in Hoelbrak prompted, not calling the Kodan chieftain vendor a Claw like their lore demands them to, no actual mention of one of the fallen totem spirits in statue form in the constantly freezing area when it comes to that Living Story season 3 release); that character breaking issue still jars me to this day. Another thing that was barely touched upon in the actual map, but not enough in the last story instance are the improvements that the Inquest made after they researched all of Scarlet's designs, or from the Zinn's lost research. The only actual improvement being the teleportation devices and nothing else visible in any way. They still acted and dressed like the 2012 inquest with just an Awakened touch up to them. It really makes that Arah wing and the Aetherblades be like the exception to what credible threats they might be and fall flat without that Kudu or Scarlet leading them.

Being a new player and coming from another wildly popular MMORPG, I felt the actual storytelling in episode 1 was fantastic (I caught up with almost all of the pre-PoF story via youtube) and imparted a rather deep sense of urgency which is absent in most games.

One element I think would be worth exploring in future episodes (perhaps throughout the entire season and maybe even beyond through the next expansion) would be the ramifications our character's actions have and the public's perception of us because of ****SPOILERS**** our very rash, I'll thought out actions have had i.e. Joko alive and well and terrorizing Tyria and Kralkatorrik being stronger and more dangerous than before.

Please less achievements that require a zerg of people to accomplish. This is unfair to those players who don't have unlimited time to play due to outside responsibilities, and find they cannot achieve said game goals once the majority of players have moved on.

I enjoy the first chapter. The final fight is a tough one, but we should be a little seasoned fighters by now after 2 expansions right?
As far of too much of any NPC 'x' I can't decide, it's just the first chapter. I don't like Braham. Have you ever thought about a NPC becoming corrupted, like Arthas (WoW/Lich King)? Drive Braham mad in a tragic way, becoming the enemy of what he once fought for, blind, obsessed.
Anyway I'm looking forward to whatever this new LS has to offer!

Liked everything a lot. A lot, a lot. Just wish the last chapter to the episode was a dungeon I could do over and over again with other people.

That and I'd like for the side story to be a bit stronger. RoX's huge eyeballs and slight smile delivering the message that Tyrian cites are under attack kind of made that seem like no big deal. That just needed a bit of a stronger narrative with more follow up outside of Istan.

Dislike:
- Please stop putting story instance exit popup in the middle of the screen, it is really really really easy to accidentally click on it when helping friends to complete story instances.
- The Scruffy fight was a bit too long for me.
- can't find anything interesting to buy with the new currency.

The story was OK-ish. Can we please tell Bram to stop whining already?

Dislike:

The Astral/Stellar weapons: they are expensive (55 ectos for an Exotic on top of all that other stuff? Thanks, but no thanks.), getting them is a grind, I find them ugly, and they come in a stat combination I have no use for.

Related to that, there is not much else to buy for Kralkatite or Volatile Magic.

Can we stop doing this thing were access to a PoI, and hence map completion, is gated behind a map meta? Especially when the event doesn't even run for significant amounts of time (no Sunspear Uprising during the night, due to Palawadan meta), or stalls completely (as happened yesterday evening on at least two EU map instances).

The story instances were a bit long; the last one was way too long. I don't think I will replay the story on any of my alts.

The story fights felt frustrating because of all the AoE, conditions, control effects, boss movements and add-spawns that get thrown at you. If your goal was to get us to spec into more defense - congratulations, I've now traited my Thief main into as much evasion, sustain and condi removal as possible while remaining stealthless.

Performance during the Palawadan meta is abysmal. As is performance in Champion's Dawn.

Probably the worst living story release since the Season 2 party instance. Story was boring and the the first and last boss are just horrible cc/time sinks. The last boss I literally had to look up a youtube video after dying 5 times trying to get those lightning aoe attacks to land on the sparks, if you want to use some stupid item which i'd advise against anyways atleast make it clear. Map looks good but there doesn't seem to be any reason to go back.

I'd stopped playing the game altogether after the continuing pushing for hardcore raid like content and came back to see if I was missing anything and this living story instance certainly didn't supply any reason for returning.

PoF and LWS4 have just felt like reliving the Guild Wars 2 release back in 2012 Enjoying the game so much more now (even though it is not really the game that was released these days )

Absolutely loved it! LWS4 so far is great. My only real complaints are "hidden" achievements There are some that if it not for the wiki and map chat I would never have stumbled upon and discovered, I spend a lot of time around the content (or what I consider a lot at least). I know some find that aspect fun but for me it is not, while I am not a 100% completionist I do like to get a majority of the achievements and content completed before moving to newer content. I only ask that "hidden achievements" be made as "locked achievements" but visible in the appropriate achievements section and with a hint ( a small one ) of were to go.

The only other comment I wold make is that with those of us who've been here (active, no brakes in playtime) since 2012 we have accumulated many gizmoz, books, portals, passes and the like. While this would really be a post for the gem store suggestions I don't think it should be a gem item as much as an addition. I think we need a Library added to the bank/wardrobe system going forward, to add our new (YAY ) lore books and gizmoz used only once or twice. I'm already using an altichar to hold the books from PoF Just a hope.

1) This - Boss AOE spam in story instances needs to be cut back severely.. It was horrible spam of stuns , fallbacks ,Story Modes are not raids . As an enginner before holosmith I wasnever able to finish last chapters. At least with Holosmith it was manageable.
Please stop makig boss fights as raid fights for every chatper. I play only with engineer and he does not tank nor has huge HP pool

2) Did not feel we need Sunspears or Devrish at all. Its their land. they should have been in more prominence in the story line. Why not make a chapter wherin I can fight as a sunspear or lead an army through war cries chants etc.

3) when are we going to ride the Wurms . If not in open world atleast in the story mode.

4) Rewards where disappointing. atleast some skins.

But overall it was the best chapter in a long time . Overall enjoyed it.